Comercializadora Multinacional de Banano, S.A. (COMUNBANA) is a multinational banana marketing company established in 1977 by member governments of the Union of Banana Exporting Countries (UPEB), with its headquarters in Panama. The organization was created to market bananas and banana products produced by its member countries, which originally included Colombia, Costa Rica, Honduras and Panama, with the Dominican Republic and Nicaragua joining later. [1] [2]
Design and History
COMUNBANA’s visual identity is closely tied to its banana marketing function. A banana label catalog entry documents a COMUNBANA product label from 1980, printed in white, black and red, bearing the text “Doña Sonia Panama Comunbana.” [3] A U.S. trademark registration for “DONA SONIA COMUNBANA,” covering fresh bananas and plantains, describes the mark’s illustration as including plain diamonds with single or multiple line borders. [4]
Colombian architect and graphic designer Dicken Castro (1922-2016) is credited with more than 400 logo designs throughout his career, including marks for Proexpo, Colsubsidio, the XXXIX Congreso Eucarístico Internacional and the Cámara de Comercio de Bogotá, among many others. [5] [6] However, no verifiable source in the available research documents that Castro designed a logo specifically for COMUNBANA or Comercializadora de Banano Comunbana-Panama. His documented agricultural-sector logo work from 1978 includes Tecnicaña (Técnicos de la caña de azúcar), for which he chose a figurative sugarcane plant icon to aid recognition among workers with high illiteracy rates. [7]
Given the absence of primary documentation linking Castro to a COMUNBANA mark, the attribution of the company’s logo to him in 1978 cannot be confirmed from the available evidence. The organization’s founding in 1977 does place its early branding activity in the same period as Castro’s active logo production, but this temporal overlap alone does not establish authorship.
Meaning and Symbolism
Documented symbolism for COMUNBANA’s logo is limited. The trademark record for the Doña Sonia Comunbana label indicates the mark features diamond shapes with line borders, though no official explanation of their meaning has been located. [4] The banana label catalog entry confirms the product association through the printed text and the label’s use on banana packaging. [3]
For context on Castro’s design philosophy, his documented approach to agricultural logos favored figurative imagery for clarity among audiences with limited literacy, as he explained for the Tecnicaña mark. [7] Whether a similar rationale applied to any COMUNBANA identity work remains unverified.
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